How to Make Resin Keychains with Written and Video Tutorial!

Learn how to make resin keychains with this easy to follow tutorial that includes glitter, alcohol inks, vinyl and more!

Y’all know I love using epoxy resin when it comes to making glitter tumblers, but today I am branching out and making resin keychains!

DIY resin keychains are actually much easier to make than epoxy tumblers because they are flat! Soo they make a great project for beginers!

We are going to be talking all about how to make resin keychains with molds that will only take a few minutes of your time.

All you need to do is mix the epoxy and add them to the molds and then let the resin cure. This is also the perfect way to use any extra resin you might have leftover after making tumbler cups.

And then you can add vinyl decals or even pictures to the DIY keychain or just leave them sparkly. Customization also comes in when adding tassels or charms or whatever you can think of to the keychain or necklace!

So let’s get to it!

What All Do You Need to Make Resin Keychains?

The following items are what I used to make the resin keychains. Remember there are so many items you can add into resin so once you figure out how to make resin keychains, get creative with what you add!

There are a ton of different types of glitter to add including extra fine glitter, glitter powder, chunky glitter, star or shape glitter or you can add dried flowers or sequins.

If you want to get everything in one resin keychain kit including the epoxy and extras like flowers and glitter, this one on Amazon is rated well!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from Shareasale, Cricut, Awin, and Amazon.com. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my links (purple text). As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• epoxy resin
• resin molds or resin keychain kit
• glitter, embossing powder, alcohol inks (optional)
• heat gun or hairdryer
• Cricut and adhesive vinyl (optional)
• jewelry plyers and drill
• jump rings – for the larger keychains I’d recommend at least 10-12mm jump rings
• stirring sticks, medicine measuring cups, plastic cups

How to Make Resin Keychains

Making resin keychains actually goes pretty quick in the active parts. It’s the drying of the epoxy resin that takes a long time.

Luckily you won’t need a tumbler turner like we use when making personalized tumblers because the keychains are flat which makes things a little easier!

However, we’ll start off the same way by mixing the two parts of epoxy resin. You’ll want equal parts of resin. How much you need to mix is dependent on how many, how big, and how thick your keychains will be.

Make sure to be in a well-ventilated area or wear a mask and read all the directions on the particular epoxy resin you are using.

You should also use gloves when working with epoxy resin. Some people do have allergies to it, so be very careful when starting to work with it.

I ended up getting two large keychains or 3 letter keychains out of the 10ml/10ml mix. If you want thinner keychains you might be able to get one more out of the mixture.

I measured 10 ml of solution A and 10 ml of solution B in two different medicine cups. (My B solution is a little darker than normal!)

Then I dump both solutions in a sola cup and mix them well with a stir stick. Mixing is one of the most important parts of making resin crafts.

Mix kind of slow for a few minutes (I stir for 3 minutes!). You’ll probably notice air bubbles as you stir. I pop the big ones with a stick as I stir. You can also run a heat gun over the mixture to pop the bubbles.

I split this mixture into two different cups so I could add different things.

For the next step, I dumped half of the mixture into a cup and then added pink extra fine glitter. I added enough so that I couldn’t see through the glitter mixture.

Then use the scooper or pour the glitter resin into your resin mold. The molds are pretty deep so put as much in as you want the thickness to be.

Once it’s in the mold I run my embossing heat gun back and forth over it for a few seconds to make sure there are no bubbles. These guns are also called bubble poppers!

Now the hard part! Letting the resin keychain dry overnight before you touch it and make your own keychain!

Other Ideas for Making Keychains with Resin

I made a few different types of DIY keychains to show you how different ones look!

I added the other half of the clear resin to a mold and dripped a couple drops of different colored alcohol inks on the resin. They spread out on their own!

I didn’t make one, but another popular resin keychain or necklace includes adding dried flowers to them.

I’d recommend pouring half of the resin in your mold, then add the flowers where you want them with tweezers(and push them in a bit), and then pour the other part of the epoxy resin over so the flowers are sandwiched in the middle.

These would be the same steps to use if you want the glitter in certain parts of the letter or mold. Pour a thin first layer of resin, add the glitter to those spots, and then add the rest of the resin mixture on top.

Really, there are a bunch of different ways to make so many different kinds of resin crafts!

How to Make Resin Letter Keychains

For my resin letter keychains, I mixed up another batch of a 10ml/10ml solution and divided it into two different cups.

In one I added this sparkle embossing powder that I had directly to the epoxy and stirred it in.

Again I used my embossing gun over the epoxy to remove bubbles.

Then scooped the epoxy resin mixture into a letter silicone mold.

And ran the bubble popping heat gun over it for a few seconds again.

I just used a wet paper towel to wipe up around resin that dripped on the side.

For the next DIY letter keychain, I added a few drops of alcohol ink into the epoxy and stirred it in.

Then I added a little bit of chunky glitter to the mixing cup and stirred them in.

Then I poured that mixture to fill in another backwards letter.

I had a little bit left of each of the previous two mixtures so I mixed them together! Why not?? There is no right or wrong way of making custom keychains or necklaces!

It was enough to fill another letter mold and pretty cool looking!

I ran the heat gun over them and left those alone to dry overnight on a level surface too.

Removing Resin Keychains From the Molds

Once they’ve dried overnight, it’s time to remove the hardened epoxy resin keychains from the molds.

Gently push up from the bottom and peel them out. I have heard of the silicone molds ripping so try to be somewhat gentle!

Look how cool those colors are! This was the one I dropped three different colors of alcohol ink on the resin.

The nice thing about resin is that it can be sanded and also drilled through. So if you have any rough patches on the backside you can gently sand it to smooth the resin out.

Such pretty and uniform glitter! Again you can also make resin jewelry instead of keychains with these just by putting some string through the holes.

I think the embossing powder one is my favorite!

Adding Vinyl to the DIY Keychains

Now you can totally personalize the keychains with vinyl decals if you want. The resin letter keychains were pretty narrow so I didn’t add anything to them because they are super cute just the way they are!

I have a ton of tutorials on how to apply vinyl to things so I won’t go into much detail.

Design your decals in Cricut Design Space. I used the Monogram It app (tutorial here) to design my monogram and then CDS to make the shadow layer.

Cut permanent adhesive vinyl with a Cricut Joy, Cricut Explore Air 2, or the Cricut Maker and weed off the extra vinyl.

Then use transfer tape to apply the decal to your keychain. Scrape it down well and then peel off the transfer tape.

How to Add Hardware to the Keychains

So I am going to admit up front, I am not a DIY jewelry maker so my technique is probably not that great!

I even had to order some extra jump rings in the middle of the project because the ones I had were not big enough.

For the letter keychains, I used my weeding tool to push a hole in the top of the letter and then screwed in the screw pin it came with. You can also use a jewelry drill or a regular drill with a very small drill bit.

The resin keychain kit I got didn’t come with jump rings so I had to grab some out of a jewelry kit I had.

Open the jump rings with some needle nose plyers or tweezers and hook the keychain on it (and tassel if using). Then insert the key ring into the pin screw and close it by clamping the edges together with the plyers.

You can also hook multiple jump rings for the separate components. You can watch my big fingers fumbling with these steps in the video, lol!

For the larger keychains, the molds I used I think were mostly for necklaces because the holes were pretty far down. I would recommend using jump hoops over 10mm. The biggest one I had was 10mm and it fit a few of them but I think 12 mm or even bigger would have been easier to use.

Now your DIY keychains are ready to give out as gifts, party favors, or just because gifts!

I do have a full video tutorial of all the steps over on my YouTube channel if you want to watch all the steps in action.

On the YouTube video, you’ll see me making two different keychains. One with just alcohol ink and one with chunky glitter.

If you’d like to save this tutorial on how to make keychains at home for later or share you can PIN It now! If you are on a desktop hover over the top left of the image below and if you are on a phone simply tap on the image and a PIN It button will pop up to click on!

Or check out our resin keychain web story here.

Here are some printable directions on how to make resin key chains step by step.

Thanks for stopping by and have a creative day!

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